The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has unveiled plans to invest $20 million to help create two centers that aim to advance the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tech solutions to strengthen U.S. manufacturing and cybersecurity for critical infrastructure.
The agency – a component of the Department of Commerce – announced its latest investment plans on Dec. 22, explaining they mark an expansion of its existing collaboration with MITRE Corp., which operates federally funded research and development centers.
NIST said the new investments also will push forward the goals of the agency’s Strategy for American Technology Leadership in the 21st Century, which the science agency published in September, as well as the Trump administration’s AI Action Plan released earlier this year.
The new investments will be directed to the AI Economic Security Center for U.S. Manufacturing Productivity and the AI Economic Security Center to Secure U.S. Critical Infrastructure from Cyberthreats, the agency said, and they “will drive the development and adoption of AI-driven tools, or ‘agents,’ in these two national priority areas.”
“The centers will develop the technology evaluations and advancements that are necessary to effectively protect U.S. dominance in AI innovation, address threats from adversaries’ use of AI, and reduce risks from reliance on insecure AI,” NIST said.
“These are important first steps in NIST’s programmatic plan to coordinate innovation-based research efforts for accelerating the development and deployment of critical technologies in areas of national priority,” the agency said.
“Building on its long history of public-private collaboration, NIST plans to use adaptive and flexible partnerships to develop, pilot and implement new advances to establish U.S. leadership and innovation in critical and emerging technologies such as AI, quantum information science and technology, and biotechnology,” it continued.
Craig Burkhardt, the acting under secretary of commerce for standards and technology and acting NIST director, said the goal is to remove barriers to AI innovation.
“This new agreement with MITRE will focus on enhancing the ability of U.S. companies to make high-value products more efficiently, meet market demands domestically and internationally, and catalyze discovery and commercialization of new technologies and devices,” Burkhardt said.